Site Menu – Soluble Apps

Mailshot 3.5- Bigger and better!

We have just released updates for our popular MailShot Pro and MailShot group email apps on the App Store.

The updates include:

NEW Optimisations for iOS 8, including 64 bit support.
NEW Support for the larger screens on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus.
NEW List or Print a group (see below)
NEW Case-insensitive comparison of email addresses- (i.e. “support@email.com” is now regarded as the same as “Support@email.com”)
NEW Prevent users creating blank groups, with no members
NEW Help message about the checklist feature, if a user adds more than 5 addresses by hand at once.
NEW Help message if user uses an email address as a group name.
FIX A rare bug if you exit the rename screen for a group without changing anything.

Occasionally we get asked for a way to send or print a list of people in a group, so we have added this (as an experimental feature.) Enabling a switch marked “Email Sharing Button” on the MailShot page in Settings, adds a share button to the menu bar of the group members page. Tapping that button creates an email containing the names and addresses of your group. You can then easily send, print, or copy and paste it.

The release was delayed a few weeks while we struggled to identify an issue introduced by iOS 8 that we now know only affects users using certain non-english characters in contact names, on devices set to non-english languages. We worked around the problem, but we see that Apple have also now fixed their bug with iOS 8.1.

We hope you enjoy the update. As always, you can find help on the Support page and in the User Guide. I that doesn’t solve your problem, please drop us a line from the Support button on the title page of the app if you have any problems and we will be happy to help.

MailShot Pro works with iPhone 6+, 6, 5S, 5c, 5, 4s, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini, and is available now on the App Store.

MailShot works with iPhone 6+, 6, 5S, 5c, 5, 4s, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini, and is available now on the App Store as a free download that can create up to 3 groups with up to 5 contacts per group. An in-app purchase removes those restrictions. No recurring subscription is necessary.

TextShot Update

We have just released version 1.2 of TextShot, our popular group texting app, to the App Store.

TextShot is designed to feel very familiar to all users of our MailShot group email app (although messages are sent from within the app itself this time) and it also adds the ability to create short pre-defined messages, to cut down on typing for messages you send repeatedly.

The new update adds the ability to paste strings of numbers, or names and numbers to rapidly create groups that you can send text to.

As always, if you have any questions please see our support page, or drop us a line from the Support button on the title page of the app.

TextShot Pro works with iPhone 5, 4s, 4, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini, and is available now on the App Store.

TextShot Lite works with iPhone 5, 4s, 4, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini, and is a free download that creates up to 2 groups with up to 4 contacts per group.( An in-app purchase removes those restrictions.)

MailShot 3.0 Brings A Fresh New Look.

We are delighted to announce the release of MailShot Pro 3 and MailShot 3, which brings a fresh new lick of paint and some exciting features that our users have asked for to the world-beating Group Email app, now used by over 230,000 people.

As usual, this will be a free update for our existing users.

We now have a new cleaner, flatter look, designed to fit with iOS7 (although you don’t require iOS7 to run it.)

A fantastic new feature is the ability to rapidly add a list of contacts, by pasting a string of addresses and contacts into the app.

You can read more about how to use this feature here in the User Guide, and you can also find a number of helpful hints and tips on how to extract email addresses as strings from received email, spreadsheets etc. here on our Support Page.

You can now easily duplicate a group. Tap “Edit” on the page where your groups are listed, then use the icons that appear on the right to drag a group onto the red bar at the bottom of the list to duplicate it.

And there are a couple of other changes that it may be useful for our existing users to know about…

Context sensitive buttons. To simplify things for new users, buttons for selecting and deselecting multiple contacts, and entering edit mode, are now only shown when relevant. Note that the automatic “sort” function IS still available, just tap the the “Edit” button on the contacts page to access it.

Manually-added contacts are no longer highlighted in red. This had obviously been confusing people, as we received a number of support questions about it. Now a contact will only appear in red if it was originally added from your address book, but is no longer found there.

A new search bar on the contact checklist lets you search on first name or email address, and only shows matching contacts. (we will add a search on company name in the next update, after requests)

The size of each group is displayed more simply on the groups page. It now shows just the size of the group, and will only show two numbers (such as “14 of 16”) when some members of a group are deselected.

There were also a number of other improvements:

• More tutorial information links within the app.
• Improved diagnostic information in the support request email.
• New share options to tell your Twitter and Facebook friends about the app.
• Updated to ARC and Modern Objective C standards.

We hope you enjoy the new features. Please let me know of any issues you spot, and we’ll do our best to help. If you wish to get in touch, please use the “Support” button on the title page of MailShot. Our Support Page and User Guide are also there, as always, to help.

MailShot Pro works with iPhone 5s thru 3GS, iPod touch and iPad mini, and is available now on the App Store.

MailShot works with iPhone 5s thru 3GS, iPod touch and iPads and is available as a free download that creates up to 3 groups with up to 5 contacts per group. An in-app purchase removes all restrictions.

Our new app- “TextShot- Group Text Done Right”

Over the past two years we have received a lot of requests from our many MailShot users asking us for a companion app to handle text and iMessages. So we are delighted to announce the arrival of TextShot on the App Store this week.

TextShot will feel very familiar to users of our popular MailShot app. Adding contacts to a group is handled in the app in all the same ways, with a very familiar interface.

Unlike MailShot, TextShot sends its messages from within the app, so we also took the opportunity to let you create and send your own preset text messages. Select a group, choose your text, then tap the TextShot logo to create a new message. It saves a lot of typing on that cramped mobile keyboard (and you can easily do it one-handed)

We expect the app to appeal mainly to iPhone users for sending SMS, but you can send iMessages to other iOS users from all iOS devices. TextShot doesn’t handle email.

TextShot is available on the App Store in two versions-

TextShot Lite is free to try, but restricts you to two groups of up to four contacts, and two different text presets. It is upgradable with an in-app purchase.

TextShot Pro removes all of those restrictions.

A Support page and User Guide are also available, and will be built up over the following days. As always, if you need any assistance please get in touch through the Support button on the front page of the app.

MailShot now has over 150,000 users

Our popular Mailshot app now has over 150000 users. Thanks to everyone who has spread the word. Get in touch with us if you need any help

It was great to hear from Apple today that over 150,000 people are now enjoying the unique benefits of our MailShot apps.

I hope everything is going well for you all, and thanks for all your fantastic comments on the App Store, they really make a difference.

If you have any problems, please see our Support page or User Guide or get in touch using the “Support” button on the title page of the app. We are always very happy to help.

MailShot 2.0- Exchange, Android and More!

MailShot and MailShot Pro 2.0 are now available on the App Store. These are the latest in a long line of free updates to be released for our unique group email app since its launch last year, adding useful features each time.

Among other things, this update allows control over where your MailShot contacts are saved and introduces a new additional email format for compatibility with other platforms.

Select which address book to save to.

MailShot now saves its special group contacts to your default address book.

TIP: The default address book for your device is set on the “Mail, Contacts Calendars” page of the Settings app.

If you need more control over where your contacts are saved, you can select which address book types to use.

You can find more information on our support pages.

Exchange, Android and Google.

You can now store MailShot contacts in address books that are synchronised with an Exchange server. This simplifies a few things that tripped new users up, and allows you to synchronise MailShot group contacts to Android, Google etc.

You can use these group contacts to send email from Android devices, or from Google’s web mail. These extended features are provided as a convenience for our users, and your results may vary. Please do let us know if you encounter any problems or restrictions on use or group size when using this feature, so we can advise others.

TIP See these links for tips on using Mac Mail, iCloud.com and the GMail iOS app for other workarounds to send email to MailShot groups.

‘Standard’ email address format.

MailShot uses a special address format for compatibility with iOS Mail.

You can now also create an additional, “standard” email address for the group contact. This is enabled on the MailShot page of the Settings app.

This additional format will allow you to use MailShot groups in more places (but probably not Outlook, despite the name). Please let us know what does or doesn’t work for you.

NOTE: Take care to choose the correct address when you have two of them available. iOS is always listed first.

iCloud-based upgrading.

We now store the upgrade status for the free version of MailShot in iCloud.

If you install it to more than one device, a single in-app purchase upgrades them all (on iOS 5.0 and above.)

NOTE: Each group should still be managed from one device, and the contacts shared to your other devices.

Edit manually-entered contacts.

Just tap the contact in the list to edit its name or email address.

200-contact warning.

As more people create iCloud accounts, ‘me.com‘ addresses are becoming more popular. We have added an additional warning pop-up when a group exceeds 200 contacts, as this is the limit per email from me.com.

TIP: Any warnings that don’t apply to your email provider can be disabled on the MailShot page of the Settings app.

Confirmation before sort

We now ask for confirmation before a sort, as a number of users reported tapping the “sort” button when they didn’t intend to.

Retina Display

Icon and title page graphics have been updated for the new iPad retina display.

Minimum iOS version

The minimum iOS version has been raised from 3.0 to 4.0. We estimate that fewer than 1% of our existing users are still using iOS 3.0-3.2.

If you encounter any problems please let us know, as we are always very happy to help. Our Support page and User Guide are also always available for you whenever you need them.

If you find MailShot useful, a new or refreshed review on the App Store is always very much appreciated (this is really important to us after an update, as old reviews get pushed to other pages.) The “rate” button on the title page of MailShot is provided to make this easier for you.

MailShot Pro Sends Group Email Around The World

A new version of MailShot hits the app store today, adding support for French, Spanish and Chinese languages.

We are really excited to introduce MailShot Pro to a wider audience of French and Spanish speakers, and into China, one of the fastest-growing markets in the world. The worldwide reach of the App Store gives a small developer like us a global presence in markets that we simply couldn’t enter on our own.

You can now find localised support for MailShot in French, Spanish, Chinese and of course English.

This release also fixes an issue that a few users have experienced when naming their MailShot groups.

As always, if you find MailShot useful, a review on the App Store is always very much appreciated, as each new release tends to hide the fantastic reviews we have received so far.

MailShot 1.60 Brings Larger Groups For Many Users

As thanks for helping us reach over 50000 users, and to celebrate our first year on the App Store, we have just launched another update to our popular “MailShot Pro” and “MailShot” group email apps, bringing increased group sizes and a number of other exciting new features.

NOTE: We recently renamed the in-app upgrade for the free version of MailShot to “MailShot Upgrade”, because a few users were confusing it with the “MailShot Pro” app, and were downloading (and being charged for) both. The upgrade still includes all the same great features as “MailShot Pro”.

New features in version 1.60 include:

More Groups.
The number of groups you can create in the upgraded and Pro versions has now been doubled, to 100.

TIP: Groups can be sorted into any order using the “Edit” button on the groups page.

More Contacts.
We have changed our address format, which will now allow you to address as many contacts as your ISP permits from the group contacts created in the new upgraded and Pro versions of MailShot. In many cases this is now 100 contacts.

We also added a warning when you exceed 100 contacts, which can be turned off in the Settings app.

NOTE: you can send to groups with as many as 500 contacts through Google Mail by connecting to it using the “Exchange” instead of the “Gmail” protocol, Here are the instructions. (For simplicity we suggest you don’t enable contact sync over Exchange if you don’t need it, just enable it for email). Be careful of the daily limits on Google Mail.

Use MailShot group contacts from a Mac.

Contacts that you create in MailShot on your iOS device can also now be used from Mail on your Mac, too. Note that you will need to tap “update” on each group in the new version before using this feature.

See here on our support page for more on this.

Removing Someone From A Particular Email

You can now exclude a particular contact, or contacts, from a group before you send it.

Just tap “Cancel”, save your email to drafts, then reload it again. You can now see all the contacts in the group by tapping on the address line, and can select and then delete them individually from the email.

See our support page here for more details.

Better handling of in-app purchases.

We now provide a clearer indication to users when an in-app purchase is successfully processed.

A “Restore purchases” button on the title page also enables you to restore a previous upgrade to a new device without any fear of being charged twice.

Importing MailShot groups back into MailShot.
Attempting to add a MailShot-created contact will show a list of the contacts it contains, for you to select contacts from.

You can use this feature:

To combine groups into larger ones
To import and manage a MailShot group someone sent you
Or to rebuild groups in MailShot after a backup failure or similar disaster.At a pinch you could use this to manage a group from more than one of your devices, though it is not recommended for that purpose (TIP: if you do try this, use a different name for the new group on your second device to avoid deleting or overwriting the original group)

Note that this feature can’t name the first contact in a group, as that isn’t stored, but it will restore their email address.

*TIP: You can easily share a MailShot group contact to someone else using the “Share Contact” button in the Contacts app- they don’t need to have MailShot installed to use it themselves on an iOS device or mac. (though they’ll need to store the MailShot contact in an address book which isn’t synched with Exchange, iCloud is fine for this)

Add contacts from a button.
There is a new “+” button provided at the bottom of the page that lists contacts in your groups. This allows you to easily add a single contact to a long list without needing to scroll all the way to the bottom of that list

If you have any questions, problems. or suggestions please check out our support page or drop us a line on support@solubleapps.com. We are always more than happy to help. We also run a mailing list which sends updates like this out to you every few months, simply send the word “Subscribe” to mailshotlist@solubleapps.com, and we will add you. You can unsubscribe at any time.

We hope you find the new features useful, and as always we really appreciate it if you can take the time to review MailShot on the App Store, or update an older review, as all of our fantastic reviews are moved from the main page whenever we update, and we depend on your reviews to keep developing MailShot. Here are links to the App Store for “MailShot Pro” and “MailShot” to make it easier for you to review us. As always, many thanks for those that do, it means a lot to us.

MailShot Sails Past 50,000 Users!

It’s great to hear that we have just passed another milestone for “MailShot Pro” and “MailShot”, with over 50,000 users now enjoying our unique group email solution via the App Store.

We are celebrating with a new free update for both versions within the next few weeks, bringing larger groups for many users, better handling of in-app purchases, and more in-app help and error detection. We’ll let you know more about it when its available.

Thank you all for spreading the word about MailShot to others, its great to see how it has steadily grown more rapidly each month, and much of this has been by word of mouth.

If you need any assistance with MailShot, please see our support page or drop us an email, we’ll do our best to help you.

Great New eBook “Talking to Siri” Features MailShot Pro

This new eBook from regular TUAW.com columnists Erica Sadun and Steven Sande, is a fantastic hands-on guide to tell you everything you could need to know about using Siri, a lot of which you won’t have discovered yet. It is concise and very reasonably priced, at $5.75. Recommended.

They were also kind enough to feature our MailShot Pro app as a great solution to sending group email with Siri.